Traditional Metamorphosis
A Gao Feng Solo Exhibition
"Traditional Metamorphosis" showcases an artist who was born in 1975 in Urumuqi but has lived in Beijing for more of then 10 years. Gao Feng has already exhibited in prestigious Chinese contemporary museums such as Today Art Museum in Beijing (2003) and in MoCA Shanghai (2007).
Gao Feng started his career in 1997 as a performance artist and then naturally chose to move into painting as a different medium to explore in the mature phase of his career. Even if the main characteristics of his art were already visible in his early performing works, they become more prominent in his later works. The inspiration for Gao Feng's art, which makes him unique, is micro-organisms. The evolution of them is the key to understanding his work.
Gao Feng's micro-organisms have the power to infect history and reality by serving as a medium to connect the past and the present and establish new relationships with the "real world" (as in his later works "Present Life" and "Past Existence" series). They are the key motif in a constant process of metamorphosis where they take different shapes and appear in different historical settings and miscellaneous sceneries. They spread like viruses, resistant to the passage of time, in an endless game of mutations where they constantly interfere with the perception of the "real".
"Traditional metamorphosis" is a retrospective of the evolution of Gao Feng's viruses from their germinal phase to their virtual translation in a historical and human context. In "Present Life"(2005-2007) Gao Feng transforms the scientific structure of a microorganism into abstract patterns, in "Past Existence"(2004-ongoing) the microbes take on human form and in "Mischievous Reality"(2006-2007) they are combined with real landscapes. "100 pieces of Micro-organisms" (2006-2008), a unique large piece composed of 100 representations of micro-organisms, although created later, shows the original code of Gao Feng's painting world through the eyes of a microscope and through abstraction.
In "Past Existence" (2004-ongoing) the Chinese traditional landscape became the new scenary of Gao feng organisms.This series was painted simultaneously with the "Present Life" series but its name implies that the two series belong to different time periods. In "Past Existence" Gao Feng has meticulously copied traditional Chinese painting motifs, structure and symbolism, but transforms them by adding his signature viruses to the composition.
This series attests to the maturity of Gao Feng's micro-organisms where they play a more decisive role. The appearance of microbes in all these paintings becomes a decorative interference in a traditional pictorial vocabulary. Through the combination of cartoon acrylic colors and virtual tones they give the Chinese antique scenery a futuristic and alien atmosphere. The viruses give birth to a self-closed world, an artistic realm separated from the logic of timing, history and reality.
This "meta-reality" brings together rational and irrational elements with an independent nature far from the rules governing of the "outside" world. This series is not a replication or critique of classic Chinese paintings, rather it is a creation of a new world with old world familiarity. "Past existence" appeals to one's senses more than ordinary replicas of ancient masterpieces even if there is no logical explanation for the characters in the composition. Therefore there is no right or wrong interpretation; its’ meaning is seen through the viewer's eyes and makes all possible interpretations meaningless. In the total collapse of the traditional way of working and conventions, the meaning lies unexplained giving to the viewer the pleasure of an unsolved mystery.
"傳統嬗變"展出的是年輕藝術家高風的作品。1975年，高風出生於烏魯木齊，後移居北京，在這裡工作生活已經十多年了。他的作品曾在當代相當享有聲譽的博物館做過展出，如北京今日美術館（2003），上海當代藝術館（2007）等。
1997年，高風開始了他的行為藝術家的生涯，而後很自然的轉向了繪畫，由此展開了他職業生涯成熟階段。其實高風作品特色在他的早期作品中已經開始顯現，只是在他日後的作品中，這些特點日益彰顯，成為他作品的標誌和亮點。微生物是激發高風作品創作的靈感源泉，它使得高風的作品與眾不同，鶴立雞群，了解它們的嬗變也是解讀高風作品的關鍵所在。
高風的微生物有著貫穿時空的力量，影響著現實與歷史，並在彼此之間建立起了一種全新的聯繫（"前世"與"今生"系列）。不斷嬗變是生物的生存形態，也是高風作品的主題，這些生物體以不同的形式出現在不同歷史背景或是形形色色的風景中。在這無窮盡的變異過程中，它們就象病毒一樣，不受時空限制，改變人們對肉眼可見的真實世界的傳統解讀方式。
“傳統嬗變”是對高風生物系列作品的一個回顧，從萌芽期到對歷史人物的生物幻化。如創作于2005年至2007年的“今生”系列，高風將微生物的結構直觀地轉變為抽象的圖案；在作于2004年至2007年的“前世”系列中，這些微生物又幻化成人形，與真實的生活場景相融，如《魔幻現實》系列（2006/2007年）。而《一百個生物》手稿更是一組絕無僅有的手稿，它包含了一百幅微生物，儘管是他後來所創作的，仍展現了高風的創造性思維。
在“前世”系列(2004/2007)中，中國的傳統景觀變成了高風筆下生物化的新風景。這一系列與生物“今生”系列是在同一時期繪製的。顧名思義，這兩個系列表現的是兩個截然不同的時期。在“前世”系列中，高風用高風式的微生物通過解構和象徵的手法來重新詮釋了傳統畫作。這一系列充分展現了高風成熟運用微生物符號的畫技，這些生物在傳統語言文化中形成了一種裝飾干擾。通過結合丙烯顏料和虛幻的色調的使用，中國的傳統景觀被賦予了一層神秘的未來主義色彩。這些生物創造了一個自我封閉的世界，一個理性的遠離時空和現實邏輯的藝術境界。
這些“元現實”匯集了理性和非理性的元素，遠離了外在世界的種種規則，以一個獨立的姿態在畫布上展現。這一系列並不是簡單的複製或是意在評判中國的古典繪畫，而是旨在創造一個外界所不熟識的新世界。儘管“前世”系列是由不合邏輯的元素符號所組成的，然其意義已經遠遠超乎于展現重現古代繪畫的傑出畫技，而是上升到了對人類理性的思考階段。對高風的作品的解讀是沒有正確或者錯誤的，因為在不同的觀者眼中所呈現出來的將是不同的藝術和思想境界，這讓外界可能性解釋都變得毫無意義。當傳統的約定俗成的方式方法在高風的筆下全面崩潰的同時，這些未作解釋的畫面給觀眾帶來了一種解迷的樂趣。
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